


The Measure of a Man

by ishafel



Category: Lymond Chronicles - Dorothy Dunnett
Genre: F/M, Yuletide 2004
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-07
Updated: 2014-03-07
Packaged: 2018-01-14 21:18:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1279165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ishafel/pseuds/ishafel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No one should love a woman the way Lymond loves Philippa. Lymond's sure no one else ever has.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Measure of a Man

**Author's Note:**

  * For [anaimos](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=anaimos).



It could be said of Francis Crawford of Lymond that he loved his wife-not wisely, but too well. And no one knew it so well as he; he often wondered in the early months of his marriage if any man had ever loved a woman the way he loved Philippa. His parents' love had burned fiercely enough to near destroy them all, and yet he knew if he had been in the place of that first Francis there would have been no Marthe. And though he could not have spoken for Philippa, of course, he dared hope that there would not have been a Richard. He was in the habit of underestimating his peers, Francis Crawford, because for so long he had been peerless, or at any rate unchallenged. He did not often read men so wrong, having had a great deal of practice, but he had never learned to manage Jerott Blythe.

And so when Jerott proposed to leave Scotland, only a few short weeks after his wife's death-when Jerott spoke of moving on, rebuilding, it did not occur to Lymond to worry. He did not think of what he would have done, had it been Philippa dead at their feet and not Marthe. He did not judge Jerott capable of the madness to which he himself was prone. Jerott could find peace in a willing woman, the bottom of the bottle. Jerott had never really loved Marthe, if he could ride away so easily.

He did not worry, then, where Jerott would go, what he would do. Jerott was the sort for grand gestures, and grand gestures required an audience. That Jerott had gone, alone, was a positive thing because it meant they would be spared his scenes and he would be spared the making of them. So he justified it to himself, and to Philippa. And so he spent his days in Scotland's service and his nights in Philippa's bed, and gave very little thought to Jerott.

And six months became a year and there was no word from the Continent, from Jerott in France in the house that had been Marthe's by possession and Lymond's by right. Of the business built with Lymond's money in the country that Lymond had, in the end, served so very well and come to love almost as his own. And so Lymond began to wonder, who rarely doubted, if he had done the right thing in letting Jerott go so easily.

There followed good years for Scotland, fat years, Elizabeth on her throne too new to power to turn her head northward, and the Scottish government for once made up of like-minded men with her interests at heart. And so perhaps Francis Crawford can be forgiven, if he did not think too often, or too fondly, of his former lieutenant. Of the man who had watched his wife die, and killed her killer, and turned his back on them all.

They were married for only three years, Francis and Philippa, three good years and then Philippa died. And Archie wrote letters to France, to Alsace, Russia, the Lowlands, England and Ireland and the colonies. Letters that said simply, "Come home."

They came, all of them came, that were alive and free and able. They came by land and sea, to mourn with their chief and to watch him die. It took nearly a year for all of them to arrive, and that they came in that span of time was a miracle. 

It was a year that Lymond spent maddened and grieving, and never out of the sight of one of his minders. They watched him-Archie and Sybilla and Richard and Mariotta watched him destroy himself and did what they could to stop it. The last one of them all to come was Jerott Blythe, and by the time he came the son Philippa had died to bring to term was a stout fine lad with his father's coloring and his mother's smile.

They had thought he would not come, for of them all he had almost the least distance to cover, and the most means. They had long ago given up hope, not so much of his coming, but of it mattering, or of anything mattering. He rode up the drive on his fine grey horse, paid for with Lymond's money, and dressed in expensive black clothes that owed nothing to mourning.

But Sybilla, who met him in the hall, barely noticed how finely he was dressed, and made no mention of how long it had taken him to come. She had no expectation that his presence would make a difference, and so she was able to welcome him for his own sake. And she noticed the lines about his mouth, and the gray in his hair, and thought him almost as changed as her son. She remembered Marthe dying, and that she had thought it kinder, then, to allow Jerott to believe she had died riding to him. But it was far too late for apologies or explanations.

Jerott went up, moving slowly, one hand on the undressed stone of the tower wall, thinking that once again Lymond had the high ground. It was peculiarly inappropriate, the keeping of a madman in a tower, though this did not occur to him until later. Francis Crawford, matchless and mighty, waited for him at the top. And Jerott had once been as much in awe of him as the others, and was still a little overfond. He climbed, thinking of Lymond the strategist, Lymond, the swordsman, Lymond the scholar; thinking, too, of what would be lost for love.

He was quite mad, Lymond, though perhaps he had never been quite sane. All his life he had had allowances made for him that should not have been made, but death made allowance for no one. It had taken Philippa as blithely as three years earlier it had taken Marthe. They stood for a long time looking at one another, two beautiful and brilliant men with their youth behind them, and love dead.

They were a little like each other, Jerott Blythe and Francis Crawford of Lymond, though one was very dark and the other quite fair. They had the same lines on their faces, lines of grief, and the beginning of age. They had the same fey look in their eyes, as if they were listening to a woman's voice no one else could hear. But Jerott's face was hard, closed, the face of a man in control of himself. And Lymond's face was a madman's, or a fool's: the mouth slack and a muscle in the cheek twitching.

And so when Jerott stepped too close to Lymond, the other men in the room put their hands on their sword hilts. Lymond never flinched, and the vague, pleasant expression on his face did not change. Jerott could have killed him then, before Richard could come between them. He was not the swordsman Richard was, or Lymond had been, and he was not Archie's match with a knife. But he could have killed him, and maybe they would have been grateful. 

He had come to Scotland for a reason, Jerott Blythe, come because he had something to say. It had taken him a year to do it, taken him three months to open the letter, and a fourth to read it through. He had not been going to come. So Lymond was mad, broken by Philippa's death. Jerott was a bit mad himself. It burned in him, this need to tell Lymond so. He would ask him-he would ask him did he think he was the only man in the world to have loved his wife, and lost her? 

Jerott had always been proud, and was proud still. He could not go to Lymond as he was, unshaven and clad in clothing that was very nearly rags. He had done nothing in France, nothing to resurrect the business he had once so loved. Now he spent the money Lymond had given him when he had gone away. He had a suit made, and booked passage on a fast ship, and in Dover bought a blooded horse. He would not go before Lymond a beggar.

And he had not. It hardly mattered. There was nothing left in the man before him of Francis Crawford of Lymond. There was nothing recognizable in the idiot smile, the lost blue eyes. Here, as always, Jerott had been bettered. Losing Marthe had been the worst thing ever to happen to him, and he had not been able to love her as Lymond had loved Philippa. It had broken him, maddened him, but even alone and grieving he had not been destroyed. He would never be Francis Crawford's equal now.


End file.
